Listed fertilizer producer and Agro-allied firm, Notore Chemical has drawn down from a loan facility from the African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) for the implementation of the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of its production plant and equipment, aimed at improving reliability and increase production output of the plant.
The TAM, which is aimed at returning the plant to its 1,500MTPD and 500,000MTPA name plate Urea production capacity, will also increase reliability index from the current level of 67 percent to 95 percent, the company said in a statement published by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday.
“Following the drawdown of a N13,320,000,000 (Thirteen Billion, Three Hundred and Twenty Million Naira) loan facility from African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) for the implementation of the TAM, the company has started ordering all key components for the TAM,” Notore Chemical said.
Notore chemical’s plant is located at Onne seaport in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria for effective shipment and distribution across the Atlantic coast.
The company said the TAM project will include the procurement of critical spares required to sustain the nameplate capacity of the plant and installation of a back-up power supply to the current Gas Turbine Generator.
It added that upon procurement of all the key components and critical spares required, the objective is to accomplish the maintenance activities within a period of 30-days production to production.
Notore Chemical is a leading fertilizer and Agro-allied companies in Africa with the supply of premium fertilizers, appropriate education on best practices for farming and proper deployment of these practices for optimum results as part of its principal activities.
Notore Chemical saw its revenue slump 20.1 percent to N21.4bn in its 2019 business year ended 30 September 2019.
The company said the decline was mainly due to plant downtime which persisted during the period under review.
Given its fixed operating cost, Notore Chemical also saw its operating profit decline by almost 63 percent from N9.2bn in 2018 to N3.4bn in 2019.
Consequently, the group recorded a loss of N5.7bn compared to N1.9bn loss made in the prior year.
The loss was exacerbated by a mainly because of a net finance cost of N13.7bn, a 7.2 percent year-on-year increase from 2018.
However, the company expects its investment in revamping the plants to translate to improved top-line and bottom-line performance.
